As the witnessing presence of Awareness, we stand in the background of experience; as the light of pure Knowing, we stand at its heart.

The Knowing of Our Own Being

There is this knowing and still a question.

Dear Rupert,

There is this knowing:

A) “Consciousness” is all there is, from moment to moment (or even not that, because Consciousness is beyond time and space, I know that to be the true from experience).

B) Mind, body and world dance within Consciousness and are Consciousness. Waking state, dream state and deep sleep are time-bound, and showing up in Consciousness, just like everything else.

There is this question:

When I, as a seperate entity, go there (by being conscious of Consciousness):

1) Time seems to play a role in retrospect: there is a seeming growing of time spent in THIS, and less time spent as a seperate entity. How can that be? It is like hip-hopping between knowing and not knowing, a rather impossible situation!

2) Being conscious of Consciousness seems to be accompanied, or even seems to be the same as peace-happiness-love: how can that be? Because those words are used in relation to mind and body and they seem to indicate a state. Consciousness is not a state! I cannot solve this on my own.

3) Reasoning from the point of view, so to speak, of Consciousness: there is no forever, no time, only Timeless Presence. The mind comes in through a little hole and asks: so there is timeless peace and happiness, but you, still being a person, must know that these are qualities of the mind and body. Consciousness can only be a void and dull for that matter!!!

Consciousness answers: that is not my experience: I am very peaceful.

That is a feeling, that does not count, is the answer of the mind. Reasoning and Knowing: Is it all a matter of time….time that does not exist?

With love,

Just

Dear Just,

Just:There is this knowing: A) “Consciousness” is all there is, from moment to moment (or even not that, because Consciousness is beyond time and space, I know that to be the true from experience).

B) Mind, body and world dance within Consciousness and are Consciousness. Waking, dream and deep sleep states are time bound, and show up in Consciousness, just like everything else.

There is this question:

When I, as a separate entity, go there (by being conscious of Consciousness):

1) Time seems to play a role in retrospect: there is a seeming growing of time spent in THIS, and less time spent as a separate entity. How can that be? It is like hip hopping between knowing and not knowing: a rather impossible situation!

Rupert: There is no entity that goes ‘there.’ Rather Consciousness is always in its own placeless place, knowing and being only itself, eternally.

Within Consciousness, and made only out of it, the dualising mind rises up, seeming thereby to obscure Consciousness’ knowing of its own being and creating as a result, an apparent separate entity and an apparent separate world.

A second thought then arises which believes that this apparent entity is both ‘knowing’ and ‘present’ (being) in its own right, and further thoughts subsequently rise up which credit this apparent entity with the ability to choose, decide, act, love, etc. etc. including the ability to go in and out of Consciousness.

But this apparent entity has no existence of its own. It is just a thought and a thought cannot know or do anything, let alone go anywhere.

So the apparent separate entity does not know anything, let alone hop between knowing and not knowing.

Rather we could say that there is Consciousness, which is Knowingness itself and that this Knowingness is sometimes SEEMINGLY obscured by the arising of the dualising mind.

However, that is the answer to a question that provisionally believes that the dualising mind obscures Consciousness.

In reality Consciousness never knows anything other than itself, even when the dualising mind appears.

* * *

Just:2) Being conscious of Consciousness seems to be accompanied, or even seems to be the same as peace-happiness-love: how can that be? Because those words are used in relation to mind and body and they seem to indicate a state. CONSCIOUSNESS is not a state! I cannot solve this on my own.

Rupert: You are right, peace-happiness-love is just another name for the knowing of our own being, which in turn is just another name for Consciousness.

When the mind rises up out of this timeless non-objective experience of peace-happiness-love in which it was not present, it creates the apparent separate entity and then believes that the experience of peace-happiness-love was experienced BY this entity that the mind believes itself to be.

In other words, the dualising mind makes an imagined state out of peace-happiness-love and attributes it to a separate entity. But peace-happiness-love is not a state of the mind or the body. It is that in which all states of the mind and body appear and out of which they are made.

Just:3)Reasoning from the point of view, so to speak, of Consciousness: there is no forever, no time, only Timeless Presence. The mind comes in through a little hole and asks: so there is timeless peace and happiness, but you, still being a person, must know that these are qualities of the mind and body. Consciousness can only be a void and dull for that matter!!!

Consciousness answers: that is not my experience: I am very peaceful.

That is a feeling, that does not count, is the answer of the mind.

Reasoning and Knowing: Is it all a matter of time….time that does not exist?

Rupert: It is not the mind that knows the peace and happiness. Peace and happiness are the names we give to Consciousness’ knowing of its own being.

However, the mind appropriates this non-objective experience of peace and happiness and attributes it to the apparent entity who, it alleges, is the knower of the peace and happiness.

But the mind knows nothing of peace and happiness. It is not present ‘during’ the non-objective experience of peace and happiness - that is why we like peace and happiness so much!

Consciousness’ answer above is correct! The mind’s answer is a mis-representation of peace and happiness. Peace and happiness are not states of the body and mind that is, they are not feelings.

Consciousness is only void and dull from the mind’s point of view. Because Consciousness has no objective qualities the mind labels it empty and boring. But from its own point of view, so to speak, Consciousness is not empty and boring. It is fullness itself. It is peace, happiness, love and beauty. It is freedom itself.